


Letter to Mrs Salville, England

by cefyr



Category: Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Genre: Gen, Yuletide 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:49:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cefyr/pseuds/cefyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A horrifying tale of a misguided scientist and a monster with a too-human face, told by R. Walton in a letter to his sister</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letter to Mrs Salville, England

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Port](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Port/gifts).



Glasgow, February 28, 17—

You will be surprised, no doubt, to hear from me again so soon, given that it was less than five days ago that I left you for Glasgow, where I intended to find and equip a new ship to take me north on this second voyage of mine, expected to succeed where my latest adventure most unfortunately failed. I had not intended to write until I was able to inform you of the departure of my ship, but the strange and deeply worrying events of the last day force me to break the promise I made to myself in this regard.

You recall, I am sure, the story which I told you in the letters I wrote to you during my last expedition, which ended with the sad death of my new-found friend, Victor Frankenstein. How I rue the fact that we had so few days to spend together! And yet I find some comfort in the fact that he can only be happier now, reconciled as he must be with his family in the next world. He died, he told me, before he could absolve himself of his greatest sin and rid the world of that deformed and hideous creature, the creation of which he, in a time of youthful exuberance, had thought but a first step towards greater understanding of the human body and mind. Little did he know what the creature, its mind lacking any sense of humanity or charitable feeling, would do once it was let out on its own, and so it fell to my dear friend, time and time again, to take upon himself the guilt which his soulless creation refused to feel for its evil deeds.

I hesitate, dear sister, to write what I know I have to; many times now have I laid down my pen, as if the very act of setting down on paper the latest course of events would somehow make them less real. And yet I know that what I heard, what I saw, is forever etched into my mind with a clarity that makes even the brightest daylight seem dim and diffuse.

I had been occupied out by the sea the whole day with preparations for my voyage. These were more complicated and time-consuming than I had planned for, and so the sun had set by the time I had finished. I was famished after the long day's work and chilled to the bone by the hard winds blowing in from the sea, and so I entered a small inn on my way into town in the hope of finding some nourishment and warmth. I sat down close by the fire and was soon given food and drink; it was late enough, and bad enough weather, that not many workers chose to stop on their way home, especially as the drink was neither cheap nor very good, and thus the room in which I sat was quite empty.

I, who was in no hurry to get back to my lodgings, had spent perhaps three quarters of an hour by the fireside, and, having emptied my plate, was merely gazing into the flames while my thoughts chased them up and away from my dreary surroundings, when the door was thrown open by a gust of wind, and two men entered the room. They looked like travellers, both heavily muffled to protect them from the heavy weather, and while one of them went to call for the inn-keeper, the other, whom the battering winds must have exhausted, sat down by the door with a heavy sigh, leaned his elbows on his knees and let his head slump forward, the wide brim of his hat completely obscuring his face. I wondered at the fact that he did not come closer to fire, but hesitated to disturb him, since he seemd to be asleep.

Presently, the other man returned, and after a polite nod in my direction he placed himself opposite me by the fire and turned towards it to warm his hands. He looked to be about my age, with long, dark hair falling in curls from his temples. His face had a pleasing quality of symmetry to it, although its bone structure was a bit too coarse to give him any claim at beauty. 

I found myself yearning for human company of the kind that even a complete stranger could provide, and so I raised myself from my reveries and uttered some of those trivial phrases that permit travellers all over the world to start a conversation without having been introduced. He answered readily, in a deep and pleasant voice in which one could only faintly trace his Scottish ancestry. We discussed the weather for a while, rejoicing in the fact that at the moment, we were both out of its grasp. We then went on to talk of travelling, of places we had visited and places we would like to see. I regaled him with a vivid description of the northern seas which I had so recently sailed, and at his most insistent request, presented him with a fuller report on my unfortunate expedition. After a moment of thought, I decided to omit the tragic story of Victor Frankenstein, and mentioned only that I had there lost a friend, who was as dear to me as if I had known him for years instead of days. 

The stranger listened with rapt interest, and from the questions he put to me regarding the purpose of my expedition it was obvious that he was a man of science and knowledge. As I reached the end of my tale, pausing for a moment to yet again remember my beloved friend, too early snatched from me, the stranger looked at me with sympathy in his eyes.

‘The story of your expedition is a sad one, indeed,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘And yet, having heard of the deep feelings you still have for your friend, I cannot help but think that there is a brighter side to it. Had you succeeded where you now failed, your ship would, if I understand you correctly, have been nowhere near the place where you now met him, and he would undoubtedly have been worse off for it, and so would you, I dare say, although you naturally miss him greatly.’

‘My dear sir,’ I said, ‘I fear that you are missing the point I was trying to make. Victor Frankenstein had not embarked on this journey for his own pleasure, but to fulfill a promise which he had made, and had he not been picked up by my ship and made to realise that he had indeed driven himself to exhaustion, he might still have been able to go on, driven only by his strength of will, which was remarkable. I am still not quite easy in my mind on this subject, for I would rather he had died successful, however hard-won that success may have been, than succumbed to an illness he might otherwise have dismissed from his mind with singleminded fervor.’

The stranger fixed his eyes on me; there was a fire in them now which I had not previously seen. ‘Frankenstein!" he said, sounding as if the name in itself had a meaning, and dismissing the rest of my speech. ‘But this is remarkable – it simply cannot be – that I should be so lucky as to meet a friend of his!’

He paused and collected himself before continuing, in a voice which showed signs of some heavily repressed feeling, ‘You say your friend's name was Frankenstein. While listening to you earlier, I had regretted that I could not bring myself to tell even someone as sympathetic as you the truth of my own adventures, but you call your friend by that name, and describe him in such a way that I recognise him, and thus I can only conclude that you know enough of his background to hear my story in full. I admit that I have waited a long time to be able to share it, for even though some parts of it may seem fantastic, I swear that every word of it is true.’

Having said that, the stranger cast a glance towards the door, but it remained closed, which seemed to satisfy him, though I could not see his reason for it. He motioned to the inn-keeper to refill his drink, and then he began his tale, which I have here attempted to write down just as he told me.

‘I am,’ said the stranger, ‘as you may have realised, a natural philosopher, residing in London, though Scotland is the land where I grew up. One year ago almost to this day, I recieved a visit from a man answering to the name and description of your late friend. He seemed greatly troubled, and when he asked me to more clearly explain my houghts on some natural processes, on which I had lately written a scientific article, his appearance was that of a man who knows that the questions in his mind vastly outnumber the answers the world will be able to give him. I helped him as best I could, and sent him on his way somewhat enlightened, I hope. 

‘Some time later that year, I went for a walking tour in the country. I stayed for some weeks in a cottage I own in northern Scotland, where I had become friendly with the local fishermen, who, knowing my interest in the natural sciences, were inclined to give me of the fruits of the sea that, which seemed to them the most remarkable. One day on my way down to the shore, I was hailed by the oldest of the fishermen. He looked quite shaken, and when I asked him what was the matter, he told me of his latest find, which had, he said, greatly disturbed both him and his neighbours. He refused to speak further as to the nature of the object, but offered to take me to it. I followed readily, expecting some hideous creature of the kind which usually dwells in the hidden depths of the ocean, for I could think of nothing that would frighten these people as easily. What I found, however, was something quite different. The object which the old man had retrieved from he sea, and which was now standing upon the sea-shore, was a big wooden chest. It was still dripping with water, and through the gap under the half-opened lid came the stench of rotten meat. Shuddering, I drew nearer and shifted the lid slightly to the side, while the old man looked on from a safe distance.

‘The sight was a gruesome one, I must admit, for the chest was indeed filled with decaying flesh and bones. At first it gave the impression of a butcher's shop having been packed into it, but I had spent many a day learning about the anatomy of different animals, and I soon realised that these were not the limbs of an animal, but a human, or, as I could guess from the size of the chest, several humans.

‘‘We were wondering, sir, if we ought to call for the authorities,’ remarked the old man when he saw that I had understood the situation. ‘It looks to be a corpse, sir, does it not? And we were wondering whether it might be that other scientific gentleman from further up the coast, he who left so suddenly. What do you say, sir?’

‘This was the first time I heard of another visitor, and further interrogation revealed that it was indeed my colleague – for such I dare call him – and your friend, Victor Frankenstein, who had taken another cottage on one of the isles in the near vicinity. That we should have lived so near each other for such a relatively long time, whilst still thinking ourselves the only visitors for miles around, only shows what a strange thing coincidence can be.

‘I gave the matter some thought, but decided to recommend that we delay any contact with the police for a while longer. I readily admit that my suggestion was not an entirely unselfish one, for the longer I beheld that morbid catch from the sea, the more I came to see that I, and not the police, was the most fitting candidate for an investigation, especially as I would easily recognise the face of Frankenstein, should the terrible fate have befallen him, which the fisherman seemed to believe. Having come to this decision, I reassured the fishermen and made them bring the chest back to my cottage, where I put it in a small outhouse.

‘My further study of the materials showed that though the limbs were battered by the elements, they had at one time been assembled in a reasonable way, and did, more or less, make up the body of a human being such as ourselves. I soon began to realise that, though it was not Frankenstein himself who lay dismembered before me, he might still have had some part in the creation of the contents of the mysterios chest. As I worked, it became even clearer that Frankenstein must have continued on the path which he had started in my rooms, and had been on his way to creating a man-like figure, ready to be imbued with life. That he had given up in anger was obvious both by the state of the collected parts and by the fact that he had thrown them into the sea and left, by all accounts with no intention of returning.

‘I confess I did not know what to do, but I could not let this opportunity slip away from me, and so I brought the remains of my colleague's experiments back to London. Working in my lavishly equipped laboratory, it was not as difficult as one might think to retrace his steps and document his work. I sincerely wished that I could inform him of my actions and explain that I sought only to continue what he had so promisingly begun, but by the time I was finished, with no word from him, I was resolved to go on by myself. 

‘I do not know for how long he had worked on his half-formed creation; for me, it took months before I had assembled something in which I was confident enough to begin the last phase of the process. While my colleague had, for some reason unknown to me, elected to build a woman, I thought it easier to imitate the Lord not only in the giving of life to the lifeless, but also by creating this new man in my own image, though of slightly taller stature than my own. I am not a vain man, I hope, but just like a proud father eagerly searches for his own reflection in the face of his youthful son, and praises those traits which he recognises from himself, so did I work to make the man I created a better version of myself, and one who needed not start his man-made life by hiding his face in shame.’

At this point, the stranger cast yet another glance in the direction of the door. I, meanwhile, sat motionless in my chair, petrified by some nameless dread which whispered to me that not only had this man violated all that ought to remain sacred, he had not yet ended his tale, and indeed indicated that this last part would be the one in which I must show the most interest. I nodded mutely, begging him to go on, for I knew I had to hear him out to the end.

‘It was two months ago,’ concluded the stranger, ‘that my effort was crowned with success, as the man-made man raised his head and looked at the world around him. I named him Talos, after a figure in the Greek mythology, and made him my servant and right-hand man in all aspects of life. He is not a remarkable man, except for the way he came into this world. He is well suited to be a servant, his character amiable and unassuming, and though he is rather quiet and shy, this seems to be the result of chance and personal inclination, rather than some failure of construction on my part. Overall, I must say that I am quite happy with my companion.’

At the word _companion_ , I felt an ice-cold certainty spreading through my body, making it impossible for me to move a limb. I dared not look towards the door, where, somewhere in the shadows of the doorway, the other stranger lurked, surely the companion of which the man had spoken. My mind felt foggy, and I confess I could not see why this villain had seen fit to reveal his despicable work to me. Then he spoke again, and my horror turned to disgust and anger, although in my condition of shock I could give voice to neither.

‘I know,’ cried the despicable man, at last having ended his tale, ‘that you, just like myself, rejoice in this discovery, and also in the happiness it would have brought Frankenstein, had he but lived to experience it. I shall forever remain in his debt for the help he, though unwittingly, has given me.’ 

My mind reeled at this monstrous accusation, for though my friend had erred greatly against humanity in the creation of his own unnatural creature, he had surely repaid his debt in suffering time and time again. That this man should interpret my friend's throwing away of his work, not as the disgust it was, but as an encouragement to those who would come after him! I shuddered at the thought, for who knew what might follow? In my mind's eye I saw row upon row of creatures such as these, mindless, soulless, godless, created barren, without creativity of their own, existing only to serve their masters until they grew strong enough to overthrow them. How horrible to believe that the man had succeeded in creating a likeness of his own in both mind and spirit! For humanity is surely most easily fooled by any monster whose face does not match its character, and its character must certainly be evil, given that its very creation was facilitated through the breaking of natural laws. 

The rest of the evening is still but a distant memory to me. I remember the stranger rising and looking towards the door, remarking with a certain abruptness that his companion had seemed to have decided that it was time to leave. He shook my hand, uttered some words about his happiness at having been able to share this with me, and promised to keep an eye open for news of my next expedition. He then quitted the room, pulling the door closed behind him. I remained petrified for another few moments, but at last managed to rouse myself and stagger towards the door. Shaking in every limb, I pulled it open. The rain was coming down in sheets, obscuring every shape and form, showing light and darkness and barely even that. As I looked up the street to the right, I could only vaguely make out the silhouettes of the two men who had left the inn and who were now walking quickly towards the town. From this vantage point, they looked very similar in their proportions. The greatest difference was, of course, that one of them stood almost a head taller than the other.

It is very late as I write this. I have spent the whole day in my rooms, forsaking both food and drink, pacing the floor, trying to figure out a course of action. It seems obvious that I cannot let this villain continue as he has begun, for given the fondness with which he looks at his self-created monster, there is no reason to believe that he shall not commit again that crime against reason and humanity which he has already once committed. I must stop him, then, but how? I could seek the villain out and, when I find him, destroy him together with his depraved creation, but what assurance do I have that he has not planned for such a possibility? He may very well have hidden the recipe for his evil work with some friend of his, who stands ready to become his successor if he should die. 

I do not know what course to take; I do not know anything at all, and my only possible recourse at this point is writing to you – you, who have always found my way for me when I could not. Dearest sister, what shall I do? Please advise me. 

In haste,  
R. W.


End file.
